Also in 1997, the DNC, admitting it could not vouch for the source of Chung's donations, is forced to return the $366,000 he had contributed. No problem. Mr. Schwartz, even as his firm was being investigated by a federal grand jury, shovels another $366,000 into Democratic coffers, in effect underwriting the Chung refund.
February 1998 Despite intense opposition from the Justice Department, which was worried its investigation into Loral would be compromised, Mr. Clinton gives permission to Loral to officially transfer essentially the same missile expertise to China that the company is being criminally investigated for giving to China without authorization in 1996. Mr. Clinton's February waiver calls the deal "in the national interest." Meanwhile, Mr. Schwartz sends the DNC another $55,000 during the first three months of this year.
May 1998 Loral issues a statement declaring, "No political favors or benefits of any kind were requested or extended, directly or indirectly, by any means whatever." On May 17, President Clinton asserts, "All the foreign-policy decisions we made were based on what we believed -- I and the rest of my administration -- were in the best interests of the American people."
Mr. Clinton's statement would seem to ignore the 1995 agreement among the State and Defense Departments, the CIA and the NSA to keep satellite-export-licensing authority within the State Department, a decision Mr. Clinton reversed. It ignores the vigorous opposition of his own Justice Department to the controversial waiver he granted Loral this year. It ignores the Pentagon's 1997 report concluding that U.S. national security was harmed by technology Loral transferred in 1996, a technology transfer that Mr. Clinton, in effect, retroactively approved in 1998, jeopardizing a Justice Department criminal investigation of Loral.
